


open to everything happy and sad

by misspamela



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-12
Updated: 2012-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-29 10:02:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misspamela/pseuds/misspamela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wanted to shake Tony, crawl inside him and make him stop hurting himself and hurting the team with all his stupid bullshit. They were tired and covered in smoke and ash and bits of rubble. This was going to happen again and again until Steve ended up in a scene just like this one, except he’d be cradling Tony’s dead body instead of feeling for broken bones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	open to everything happy and sad

**Author's Note:**

> For ShinySylver in the cap_ironman fic exchange!

Smoke obscured Steve’s vision. The streets shook, concrete heaving into jagged crests under his feet. Steve jumped over them easily, ready with his shield, arm tensed to throw.

Movement caught his eye on the left. A metal bot staggered through the smoke and Steve _threw_ , slicing its legs out from under it. Natasha dropped in from a height and ripped out its metal heart. She nodded to Steve and ran off, hair flying behind her.

“Report!” Steve yelled through the comm.

“Cap, it’s Hawkeye,” Clint said. A knot in Steve’s chest loosened. He hadn’t seen Clint since the start of this mess. “All the bots have been neutralized. Thor’s freeing some civilians who’ve been trapped under the rubble. Coulson’s trying to contain Hulk, I haven’t seen Natasha--”

“She’s fine,” Steve said, pausing to catch his breath.

“And Iron Man was last seen near your location. Haven’t had word from him in a while.”

 _Tony_. Steve bit down his irritation, only to have it swamped by panic.

“You guys clean up,” he said. “I’ll find him.”

Steve turned and ran straight for where the damage was the worst.

 

Focus. Steve tried to focus his mind, but his thoughts were chasing each other like dogs. _Tony just took off. Tony’s hurt. Tony’s flirting with some dame and didn’t bother checking in. Tony’s lying dead somewhere. He’d never not check in._

Through the haze and rubble, Steve saw a flash of red metal. He almost screamed for Tony, but caught himself. “Iron Man!” he yelled. “Status!”

No noise. No movement.

Steve scrambled through the shattered entrance of what used to be a parking garage. Iron Man was sprawled on the ground like someone or something had just thrown him there. The reactor-- oh, thank God. The reactor was still on, glowing brightly in the gloom and dust.

Kneeling next to Tony, Steve pushed and shoved at the helmet. “Damn it, Jarvis, let him out!” he yelled. Christ, if anyone else had found Tony, someone who was better with computers--

“Jarvis, open the helmet!” he yelled. And thank god, the faceplate slid open. Tony was coughing weakly and blinking dust out of his eyes. Alive, alive, thank god, alive.

Steve had no idea how Tony ended up way over here. Was he hurled here by one of the larger robots? Did he find something of interest and pursue it? Steve choked down his anger. They were a _team_. Tony couldn’t go haring off half-cocked like that. He could have led one of them into danger, he could have been hurt. he should have reported in--

“Wake up,” Steve snapped, clenching his hand hard enough on Iron Man’s armor to dent it. “Thank God you’re okay,” he said. “We were looking for you.”

“Hey, nice hole in the wall,” Tony said. “Did I do that?” He shifted up on one elbow, wincing.

“No idea,” Steve said tightly. “You know why? Because I had no idea where you were.” He offered Tony a hand up, but he waved it off. “You need to report in if you’re going off-plan, Tony. How many times have we gone over this? You could have been killed. Someone else could have gotten hurt looking for you. God, why don’t you ever _listen_?”

“Not my skillset,” Tony said. “Jarvis, remove the armor.” As metal began to slide away from his body, clinking and catching where it was damaged, Tony patted himself all over for damage. “See?” he said. “Nothing broken, but I have a bruise in a _very_ sensitive area, if you know what I mean.” The smile in his voice didn’t reach his eyes; it never did and Steve was just so goddamned sick of his posturing. He couldn’t take it anymore.

“Your ego?” he snapped. “Tony, I can’t run a team like this.” Steve realized he was gripping Tony’s shoulders and made a mental note not to grab too hard, but couldn’t bring himself to let go. He wanted to shake Tony, crawl inside him and make him stop hurting himself and hurting the team with all his stupid bullshit. They were tired and covered in smoke and ash and bits of rubble. This was going to happen again and again until Steve ended up in a scene just like this one, except he’d be cradling Tony’s dead body instead of feeling for broken bones.

“Cap?” Tony said, questioningly. Steve couldn’t even imagine what was written on his face. His mother always said he was a terrible liar.

"I have a head injury," Tony announced suddenly.

Steve frowned. Unlikely, as he'd been wearing the helmet, but--

"I have a head injury," Tony repeated. "And I am the king of bad ideas. That's my excuse."

Before Steve could respond to that, Tony reached up and cupped his hand behind Steve’s head, pulled him down, and kissed him. On the mouth, kind of sloppy, not that Steve was any kind of judge, with just a hint of tongue sliding across his lips.

Steve reached up and caught Tony’s hand before it could slip away. _I have a head injury_ , he’d said. Giving Steve an out. Giving himself the chance to slip away again, avoiding the consequences. But this-- this was unexpected.

Tony’s eyes shuttered, his gaze sliding downward and sideways. He tried to pull his hand away. “Right,” he said. “So that was--”

“I don’t want to be your bad idea,” Steve blurted out. He didn’t let Tony go. He could hear the echo of the cleanup outside, city trucks rumbling and churning, the _beep-beep-beep_ of emergency vehicles in the distance. His body hummed with adrenaline, jacking him up with the confidence that he usually only felt with the shield in his hand. If he held on like this -- if there were _consequences_ \-- maybe Tony would stay. Could stay.

It wasn’t the Forties anymore. They could do this.

“Okay,” Tony said, trying to pull his hand away. “Right, head injury, that’s what I said.”

Steve closed the distance, cutting off his words with a kiss. It seemed like a better kiss than the one Tony had given him, which he tried not to feel smug about. It was soft and warm and oddly sweet, given the circumstances.

But then his lips parted to take a breath and Tony took full advantage; Steve couldn’t feel smug after that because this, this was the Tony Stark the newspapers wrote about, who dated models and actresses and collected people in his bed like the cars in his garage.

Steve thought he might be moaning into Tony’s mouth, but the blood rushing to his ears was too loud; it blocked out everything but the thumping of his heart. He knew they should probably slow down or find a bed or maybe even talk about this, but his body wasn’t listening to him. Everything inside his was saying _go-go-go_ and _now-now-now_. He tried kissing places other than Tony’s mouth: his neck, the stubble on the side of his jaw, mouthing down his Adam’s apple.

Tony groaned. “You,” he said. “You’re fucking lethal, you know that?” He gripped Steve’s shoulders and pushed him down until Steve was on his back and Tony was on top of him, wearing only the black bodysuit he wore under his armor.

Belatedly, Steve realized that his cowl was still on; he pushed Tony away to pull it off, then reached out, grabbing at whatever part of Tony he could grab. HIs hands landed in his ribs, just at the part where hard bones gave way to softer muscle.

Tony yanked at Steve’s belt, pulling it open and tossing it away. Without the weight of it around his waist he felt freed to grind up helplessly, flushing with embarrassment.

“Christ,” Tony said, pinning his arms to the hard concrete floor. “Please don’t regret this in an hour so we can do this in a bed.” He rocked against Steve, wringing a whimper from him. “Because our options are limited here.”

“Not regretting it,” Steve panted. “Now be quiet.” The slight pressure of Tony’s body against his, back and forth, back and forth -- it wasn’t enough. Steve was hard and aching and his suit wasn’t really made to accommodate this kind of thing.

“Bossy, bossy,” Tony said conversationally. “Now, our options are as follows--”

“Please,” Steve said, reaching down to yank down his zipper. “Please just--” He shoved his hand down his pants, desperate.

“Fuck,” Tony said, high and tight and choking on the words. “Oh, God.” He pushed Steve’s hand away and scrambled off Steve, sliding down the length of his body. Steve didn’t want him to go, but the loss of his weight and warmth was replaced by the weight of Tony’s hands around his thighs and the warmth of his mouth--

Oh God.

The warmth of his mouth sucking and wet and relentless and Steve couldn’t take it, couldn’t take it at all and he arched and bit back the shout that threatened to explode form his throat and white lights exploded behind his eyes and that was it, the end, the end, the end.

“Don’t go,” was the first thing he said when he came to his senses. He reached for Tony, who was stroking himself hard through the thin black jumpsuit. His whole body stiffened before Steve could touch him, his face contorting in pleasure.

“That’s my line,” Tony gasped, as Steve ran his thumb down the knobs of Tony’s spine.  
Steve reached down to stop his hand, as Tony had stopped his, but Tony moaned and hunched over and came, right in his jumpsuit, with no help from Steve, slipping out of his grasp yet again.

“Where would I go?” Steve asked. “Except, right now somebody’s probably going to come looking for us.”

“I am not facing Fury with come in my pants,” Tony said, shakily, as he eased himself off Steve. “It’s a personal rule that I just made up.”

Steve got himself back together, slipping the cowl over his face last, with some regret. He still couldn’t quite reconcile Steve Rogers and Captain America at the best of times; right now it seemed impossible to put on that mask.

“Armor’s fixable,” Tony said. “I figured out what went wrong. So, you know.” He shrugged. “I can get myself back.”

“Are we not talking about this?” Steve said. He stood, offering a hand to Tony. Tony took it and stood, wincing.

“Apparently we are,” Tony said. “Right here, in this parking garage. Former parking garage. I’m pretty sure it can never be restored to its past gray, concrete glory.”

“Tony,” Steve said, exasperated. He put his hand over Tony’s mouth. His gloves were still off. That seemed important to him, somehow, that their skin was touching. “I think--” he stumbled over the words. “I think you said something about a bed?” He was blushing pretty darn hard now that the adrenaline was gone, leaving him shaky and a little hollow. “Later?”

Tony’s eyes grew wide over the top of Steve’s pinky. He gently pulled Steve’s hand away. “Here’s the deal,” he said, a little shakily. “You cover for me with Fury and I’ll not only show you my bed, I’ll even let you talk about your feelings.”

“My feelings?” Steve said. “Because you don’t have any?”

“It’s a well-known fact,” Tony said evenly. He knelt to pick up his helmet and Steve stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Give me a ride?” he asked. “Back to headquarters?”

“You’re really not going anywhere, are you?” Tony sounded more amused than annoyed and Steve could feel a big, stupid grin spreading over his face.

“Nowhere else to be,” he said. Somehow, that seemed to be the right thing to say, because Tony just gave him a little, crooked grin and turned his attention back to the helmet.

The radio in Steve’s ear hissed to life. “Where the hell are you?” Clint asked. “Fury’s about to bust a vein.”

Steve Rogers slipped away and Captain America put his hand to his ear to answer the call.

 

....


End file.
